


White Curtains

by Graveyard



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Comfort, Feelings, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 02:59:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1924197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Graveyard/pseuds/Graveyard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ratchet wakes up in a white room with a white figure standing next to him. Knowing who it is makes him at once happy, and deeply sad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Curtains

"Ratchet?"  
  
Ratchet onlined his optics and in an instant they were flooded with brilliant white light. He offlined them with a groan of displeasure. So this was what it was like being the patient and not the doctor. Now he knew why all his patients complained that it was too bright in the medibay. Cautiously he felt down his front for the wound that had shattered his chestplate, but he found it flawlessly smooth. It didn't even hurt. Whoever had fixed him up had done an admirable job.  
  
"Ratchet?"  
  
There was something naggingly familiar about that voice, something that ached in deep parts of him, and he frowned over dark optics.  
  
"Give me a moment."  
  
He sat up experimentally, but there was none of the stiffness he would expect from extended bed rest. His old, creaky joints felt oiled and new again, and he tested them with a stretch of his arms. Smooth. Effortless. If only onlining his optics were that easy. He brought a hand to his face to shield himself from the light, and then tried again. Once more endless white brilliance burned straight through him, the world lost in a haze of light. He let out a low hiss, attempting to endure the brightness, but the world never resolved, never clarified. He could see nothing.  
  
Except that wasn't true. There was something in his vision, but it was as strange and bright as the rest of this place, like sunlight on snow. It was a shape, but it was indistinct, shimmering like a mirage. Ratchet tried to focus on it, but it felt like the more he concentrated, the less substantial it got. Allowing his optics to unfocus slightly, he tilted his head up to take in the form in its entirety, looking past it to see it more clearly. Yet that didn't seem to help. The shape was hauntingly familiar, but it was impossible, a dream, a phantom memory. It was Drift.  
  
"You died," Ratchet said helplessly, hoping to dispel the illusion. But, worryingly, it smiled sadly at him instead, the dark curve of a mouth painted plain on pale features.  
  
"Something we have in common," Drift said, and Ratchet jolted as memories surged back to him. The gunshot. A flash of pain. His spark bursting in his chest. He put his face in his hands, feeling a sudden wave of grief, of regret.  
  
"I didn't mean to," he pleaded, "I had so much left to do."  
  
"Me too," Drift said simply, and then he knelt, taking Ratchet's hands and gently drawing them from his face. He was painted in sharp, bold lines now, and it no longer took any effort to see him. He was also beautiful, far more beautiful than Ratchet even remembered, and he thought about Drift all the time. When the shadows filled the corners of his berthroom and the corners of his spark, he had wished more than anything to get the chance to see Drift again, to do something, anything, to change his dark fate. Now, however, with all of eternity and Drift before him, he found himself lingering, clinging to the pain of life, and Drift's outline began to flicker again like a candle flame in the wake of his indecision.  
  
"Will they be alright?" Ratchet asked hoarsely, wondering how his voice could sound so rough when his body felt so light. "Will they be alright without me?"  
  
"They'll make do," Drift murmured, and just as Ratchet was beginning to wonder if Drift had become some transcendent being, able to effortlessly and impartially dispense wisdom to the freshly dead, he suddenly said: "I missed you, Ratchet. I--don't take this the wrong way--but I've been waiting here for you."  
  
"Here?" Ratchet stared around at--nope, nothing else had come into focus. It was just the same endless plane of white like they were standing on a sheet of paper. "Where is here?"  
  
"Between."  
  
"Are you gonna be cryptic with me even now that we're both dead?" Ratchet grumbled. "Isn't this the last big secret? And you're keeping it from me?" Drift laughed at that, and Ratchet thought it was strange that even though his spark had been extinguished he could still feel it doing somersaults in his chest.  
  
"Well, I'm not exactly sure myself. Like I said, I've been waiting." He stood, and held out a hand for Ratchet. "I think there's more to see, if you'd like. We can go there together."  
  
"Not like there's anything else to do," Ratchet groused, but as he took the hand that was offered and felt himself pulled in Drift's embrace, he thought that this was strangely okay. He had died, and maybe for the living that was sad. Here though, he was beyond mourning. He was in a place where all the sadness he'd carried with him had fallen away. Here was Drift, and if he went further he'd probably see, well, everyone. There was nothing left to be sad about.  
  
And so he laced his fingers with Drift's, saw for the first time what looked like a curtain all around them, and then together they drew it open and stepped beyond.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a writing meme on Tumblr. The topic was "ghosts in love". I hope this fits. Also, I am sorry if this made you sad today.


End file.
